📍Seed Industry Suddenly Talking of Preserving Agrobiodiversity

There is a sweet irony in the recent statement made by the FSII (Federation of Seed Industry of India) calling for greater national focus on preserving and strengthening India’s agrobiodiversity! FSII describes “seed diversity and resilient crop genetics as critical for ensuring long-term food security and farmer resilience”. Industries and corporations have so far been intent on the exploitation of agrobiodiversity, not its conservation. 

So my first reaction to the FSII statement was…did I hear that right? The second was Good, “Der aye, Durust aye”. For non-Hindi speakers, that’s ‘Better Late than Never’.

The fact is that civil society groups like Gene Campaign, MSSRF (MS Swaminathan Research Foundation) and others have been crying themselves hoarse for years that genetic diversity is one of our greatest riches and must be brought into the mainstream of seed production. Governments have more or less disregarded this appeal. They have chosen instead to support the seed industry and their own research establishment to invest in tech driven approaches like genetic engineering and gene editing. The incongruity here is that all of this research is based on genes and technologies patented by outsiders, mostly by

corporations. Nothing is Indian.

Gene Campaign which has been engaged in the collection, conservation and characterisation of traditional crop varieties, has been advocating for decades that agricultural biodiversity is the “green gold”; of India. And that genetic diversity and indigenous knowledge are the most effective, time-tested resources for securing food, adapting to climate change, and ensuring sustainable livelihoods for farmers. Gene Campaign’s collection of several hundred traditional rice varieties from eastern India, chiefly Jharkhand, was transferred to the National Gene Bank in Delhi when Dr Ayyappan was the Director General of ICAR. In Uttarakhand, Gene Campaign has made several collections of traditional varieties of mountain crops like Millets, Maize, Wheat, Soybean, Rice, Rajma etc. These have been shared with farmers from villages where Gene Campaign works because farmers want to have different varieties for planting instead of just the one or two varieties available in the village.

This way, more genetic diversity has gone to the fields. Gene Campaign also organized a Beej Mela or Seed Fair in village Reetha in Uttarakhand which was attended by farmers from several villages of the region. Gene Campaign’s collection of seeds was presented at the mela and farmers had also brought seeds from their own villages. There was a vibrant exchange between farmers of seeds and knowledge during the day long mela. On this occasion farmers were happy to take home seeds of traditional varieties that had been lost from their villages. Genetic diversity went places that day too.

The News: https://www.ptinews.com/press-release/seed-industry-calls-for-strengthening-indias-agrobiodiversity-amid-global-supply-shocks/3695322

 📍Animals have no seat at the table so we must speak for them.

This news in Hindustan Hindi underscores the point that climate change is not only affecting us humans but animals too. We can switch on the AC when it gets too hot, we migrate to cooler hill stations in summer, we build climate-controlled homes. But what do these poor animals do? They don’t switch on ACs, they move like us, to cooler climes

 

The newspaper reports something deeply troubling. The rare Himalayan Bejal, (honey badger) a small carnivorous mammal that normally lives between 1500 and 2000 meters, has been spotted for the first time at 3500 meters. Tigers have been camera-trapped at 3000 meters in the Sunderdhunga Glacier Valley in Bageshwar — a place where summer temperatures barely cross 12 degrees. Elephants have been seen climbing into the mountains around Ramnagar. These are not random wanderings. These are desperate survival responses to a warming world.

This pattern is not unique to the Himalayas It is unfolding across the planet.

⇢ The American Pika is vanishing from its lower-altitude habitats entirely in the American Rockies due to rising temperatures.

⇢  Polar bears are facing a similar fate as their sea ice habitat melts earlier and forms later every year.

⇢  In the European Alps, plant species are moving upslope at a rate of about 30 meters per decade, and animals are following.

⇢  Mountain gorillas in the Virunga range are being pushed to higher altitudes as temperatures rise in the forests below.

⇢  The mountain pygmy possum in Australia is facing habitat collapse as snowfall in the Australian Alps becomes increasingly unreliable.

⇢  Coral reef fish in the Indo-Pacific are moving poleward, tracking cooler waters, while the coral itself is bleaching and dying in place.

What we are witnessing that every species is reacting to a crisis it did not create. We are responsible for this warming; the consequences are faced by them.

There is another dimension to this that I have written about before and return to here. When animals move, they abandon the ecosystems they were part of. The predator-prey relationships, the pollination networks, the seed dispersal systems — all of these are disrupted. An elephant in the mountains is not just an elephant in the wrong place. It is a missing piece in the lowland forest it has vacated.

We owe it to these creatures, and to ourselves, to treat climate change not as an economic or political negotiation, but as a moral obligation. The animals have no seat at the table. We must speak for them.

 📌 Forests taken away from the guardianship of forest dwellers.

In India as in other parts of the developing world, many communities call the forests their home and have lived there over generations. This community of forest dwellers have traditionally derived their livelihoods from the forest which has included forest produce and agriculture.

Colonial policies which used the forest as a timber resource have historically been antagonistic to forest dwellers. Later national policies declaring certain parts of the forest as protected areas, national parks and conservation zones put further pressure on forest dwelling communities forcing displacement and marginalization.

To undo these gross violations of the rights of forest communities, the Government of India enacted the Forest Rights Act in 2006. This law recognized the rights of forest communities to live on and cultivate ancestral forest land. It also gave them legal rights to collect and use Non Timber Forest Produce (NTFP) and also sell these collections. In recognition of their role in conserving the forest, The Forest Rights Act (FRA) granted forest dwellers the right to protect and manage community forest resources. In this way, the FRA made tribal communities the legal custodians of India’s most ecologically significant landscapes. But this did not last long.

In 2023, the government brought an amendment to the largely positive Forest Conservation Act 1980 which militates directly against the earlier rights granted to forest dwellers under the FRA 2006. The Forest (Conservation) Amendment Act, 2023 has removed the mandatory clause that the Gram Sabha had to give its consent before any forest land could be diverted. This was the one institutional mechanism through which forest communities could exercise binding authority over their forests. By the treacherous amendment of 2023 amendment, this right was taken away, opening the forest to rampant exploitation.

https://theindiantribal.com/2026/05/15/weakening-tribal-forest-rights-could-undermine-indias-climate-commitments-and-carbon-sink-targets/

How the Patent System has been Subverted in Favour of Corporates | Asian Age

World Intellectual Property Day is observed annually on 26 April. As we prepare to commemorate this day, it’s a good time to reflect on what the philosophy of the patent system was when it originated and what it has morphed into today. Patents were the first form of intellectual property rights (IPR) to be granted and codified formally, now there are many other forms of IPR.

Granting a patent to the inventor of a particular product was actually done with the purpose of benefiting society at large. The way to benefit society was to give an advantage for a limited period of time to the inventor of th product or a novel method or process of developing a product so that innovation was supported. If innovation was encouraged by giving privileges to the inventor then society at large would benefit because innovations would bring in new things and new ways of doing things. This would avoid stagnation and lead to fresh growth and development. The patent system granted an exclusive marketing right, usually for 20 years, so the innovator could make money by selling his or her product or process without any competition. This meant a reasonably good return on investments so to speak. The financial gain was the attraction to continue innovation.

However it cannot be in the interest of any society to grant a monopoly to a single individual or agency , to benefit just one person at the cost of everybody else. The patent system allowed exclusive financial gain but did not allow an exclusive forever monopoly. The patent was not a forever thing but valid for 20 years after which the patent information could be used by anyone. Public interest clauses were included to prevent ‘forever benefits’ to the innovator without sharing anything with the public.

The first safeguard was transparency. According to patent rules, the moment you filed for a patent you had to make your invention public in a way that anyone versed in that domain could replicate it. You had to declare the exact way you in which you invented that product, sharing the ‘know how’ and ‘do how’ of how that product was created. Thus the new technology was transferred to the public and was available for use after the expiry of the patent period. This feature has often been subverted by latter day patent applicants, chiefly companies. The declaration of the invention is kept deliberately obtuse, missing a few key steps so that it cannot be replicated effectively. 

An important public interest feature of the patent system was ‘utility’. This meant the patented product had to be useful for the public. An innovation, however creative and novel, could not get a patent if it did not have demonstrable utility. This ensured that society benefited from the grant of the patent.

Another essential step was the feature of Compulsory Licensing. This is a clause in the patent system that allows governments to intervene when a monopoly turns hostile to public interest and becomes a disadvantage to society at large. For example, in the case of a patented medicine, if the pharma company that holds the patent is not providing that medicine in the quantities required or is pricing it too high and therefore putting it out of the reach of common people, then the government can intervene. Under the Compulsory Licensing clause, the government can grant a license to another company to produce the patented medicine and give compensation to the original patent holder. In this way the welfare of society was given primacy and the patent holder was not allowed to exercise its monopoly to the detriment of citizens. 

A third important feature of the patent system which was followed in earlier times is “Working the Patent’. This means if you have been granted a patent right in a particular country you have to manufacture that product in that country. You cannot just import it and exercise your monopoly in the market, giving nothing in return. So why was it important to work the patent? Producing the product in the country where you were the patent holder made sure that there was both skill building and diffusion of technology in lieu of granting exclusive marketing rights. This feature balanced both interests and society didn’t lose out.

Unfortunately the patent system is being slowly subverted not to balance societal welfare with (limited) exclusive marketing but to weigh in favour of monopolies, the corporate sector being a significant holder of patents. Governments seem to have allowed “Working the Patent” to be disbanded to quite an extent. Patent holders increasingly import the products from their home countries and just exploit the local market, hence there is neither technology diffusion or skill building. Compulsory Licensing clauses are being fought tooth and nail by the corporate sector and becoming difficult to implement.

Another challenge to a balanced patent system is the attempt to “Evergreen” a patent and extend its life beyond 20 years. In this case the company makes small, usually trivial changes in the process or the product, without substantially altering the properties of the original product. It then claims innovation of a new product and applies for a patent on this product so that it can extend the monopoly of 20 years in the market for another 20 years. Essentially the core product remains the same into which no new R&D has been invested, no new properties have been added and society does not get any new benefits from this tweaked product. This Ever-greening of patents is a trick that the corporate sector has developed to line its coffers. Some government are able to resist this dishonest move and some are not.

So, there you have it. The original patent system that started out as a system to benefit the society and promote its betterment has now turned into a tool of exploitation in the hands of the corporate sector aided by pliant, and dare I say, some corrupt administrators.

source: https://www.asianage.com/opinion/columnists/suman-sahai-how-the-entire-patent-system-was-subverted-for-corporates-1952386

Women Farmers Are So Critical: It’s Time To Empower Them Worldwide | Asian Age

A lot of research has been done to understand the role of women in agriculture. It’s now fairly well established that the empowerment of rural women is the key to agricultural development, adequate food production and efforts to end hunger and poverty. Despite this, women remain ignored as key actors. Though women constitute nearly half (over 43 per cent) the global agricultural labour force, they face major cultural and socio-economic constraints which prevent them from realising their full potential.

Women farmers work hard in the fields to grow the food that feeds the world but their contribution isn’t acknowledged. They are the “invisible workforce” which fails to get recognition from the government, media and industry. Instead of being seen as farmers, they are relegated to a lower category, as farm helpers. This prevents them from accessing opportunities and training in government schemes meant for “farmers”. While they do agricultural work equal to that of men, they are paid half the wages.

Recognising this as injustice, the Gene Campaign set up groups of women working in the field in Mahila Kisan Samitis. Establishing their identity as farmers gave them confidence to claim a place in government programmes. The samitis were the recipients of all training programmes conducted by the Gene Campaign on agronomic practices, improved millet cultivation, value addition, entrepreneurship and financial literacy.

Women’s property rights are either non-existent or restricted in most places. Women farmers usually don’t own farmland. When land is in their name, it was usually bought by men to claim welfare schemes meant for women. Such land is used and administered by the men of the family and the women know they are owners only on paper. The women often don’t have any papers in their name. This lack of official recognition denies them access to government schemes for farmers, institutional credit, farming inputs like fertilisers, farm equipment and market linkages.

Women farmers often have mobility or cultural constraints that restrict their access to markets, technology, seeds, fertilisers, credit, etc. They can’t access government mandis, the market where farmers gather to sell their produce, get information on government schemes and programmes, exchange information with other farmers and make connections with government officials. Denying them all this due to cultural constraints and biases puts a limit and prevents them from optimising their farm productivity.

This is tragic on all counts. Evidence shows that if women farmers in developing countries had the same access to productive resources as men, they could increase yields on their farms by 20–30 per cent and raise the total agricultural output by 2.5-4 per cent. This would reduce the number of hungry people in the world by 12–17 per cent.

The thrust to “modernise” agriculture by mechanisation has implications for women farmers. Who really benefits from this focus on mechanisation? Both men and women farmers? Farm machinery is almost always made for men, keeping in mind their muscular strength. This makes it difficult for use by women, who are built much smaller. In addition, the new machines do things like transplanting, which often displaces women from this labour-intensive work. While men take advantage of the mechanisation boom, women are left out of capacity building and training programmes, preventing them from using such machines in future too.

Half the pay and double the burden: Women farmers actually work harder than men. Apart from the demanding manual work in the field, they have multiple responsibilities in and around the home. Fetching water, firewood, fodder, often from long distances, household chores, childcare, etc. There is no remuneration for all this, and their agricultural work is either unpaid or underpaid. The additional burden of domestic duties with no support from the family takes a toll on their health. In developing countries across Africa, Asia and the Pacific region, women typically work 12–13 hours more per week. It’s a truism, often demonstrated, that when more income is put into the hands of women, the whole family benefits — there is improved household nutrition, better health and education.

Excluded from decision-making: Scientists, policymakers and others in the government usually tend to think of farmers as unskilled and lacking in knowledge, who have to be taught farming. This bias is several times worse in the case of women farmers. The fact is that both men and women farmers are repositories of a vast amount of knowledge about biodiversity, seeds, farming, etc. Women have a different kind of knowledge base than men.

Empower them: Women farmers can show remarkable outcomes if they are given a level playing field. Giving them this level playing field does not require giant financial outlays. It’s not so hard to bring change. A few doables:

• Start community awareness programmes to break patriarchal norms and enable women’s progress.

• Ensure proper access to healthcare and employment.

• Provide opportunities for academic and vocational education.

• Introduce pro-women policies; facilitate land ownership and access to agricultural resources.

• Pay them equal wages.

• There is an urgent need to invest in mechanised farm machinery with the woman in mind. This should be appropriate to her form and be comfortable to use.

• Involve them in decision-making at both farm and policy level.

• Reduce and redistribute household duties (this one may need persuasive change).

Source: https://www.asianage.com/opinion/columnists/suman-sahai-women-farmers-are-so-critical-its-time-to-empower-them-worldwide-1929677

‘Ghost Villages’ a Growing Threat in Uttarakhand & India’s Hill Areas | Asian Age

Recently, a tragic situation arose at a village in Uttarakhand’s villages are emptying out, with young people moving out for a variety of reasons, sometimes leaving elderly parents, and often just locking up their homes.

Forsaking the village has become common in Uttarakhand’s hill districts. The youth don’t want to continue with the traditional occupation of agriculture: it’s not remunerative enough. Thus, abandoned fields, collapsing cattle sheds and locked houses define areas that once sustained vibrant agrarian communities.

These “ghost villages” are described as a natural outcome of modernisation. But that’s a false narrative. Modernisation does not mean abandoning the traditional, rather improving and enhancing the traditional. That is where policymakers have failed. Little effort has been made in villages in hill areas, particularly in Uttarakhand, to diversify and develop the village economy, create good educational and health facilities and provide attractive jobs and income opportunities. It’s also the result of not investing in agriculture, which is the economy’s mainstay in these areas. The new element is the contribution of television and now social media, showing fantasy worlds. The triumph of illusion over reality creates a magnetic attraction for the younger generation. It’s not just farming (seen as backward anyway) and not paying enough, it’s the lure of city glamour that is drawing the youth there.

Today’s rural youth don’t migrate merely in search of jobs; they also migrate in search of a status they think rural life does not offer them. Urban life is projected as success. TV and social media relentlessly glorify consumption, leisure and spectacle. For young men, ogling fashionably dressed women holds a particular fascination. Farming, by contrast, is physically demanding, socially invisible, and economically unrewarding. Simply not “sexy” enough!

This cultural shift has had devastating consequences. Working on one’s own land, tending crops, or managing livestock is now seen by many young people as a lowly activity and a mark of failure, of non-achievement. The dignity historically associated with farming has been systematically eroded. The pride in being masters of your own land and the idea of caring for the land has been replaced by the desire for the “successful” urban lifestyle.

Young women’s aspirations reflect similar pressures. Rural women have always carried a disproportionate burden as unpaid labour: caring for livestock, collecting fodder, managing households and working in fields. These contributions remain invisible and unvalued. Many young women see village life as a trap, rather than a life within a community. Marriage increasingly becomes a route out of rural life, not a partnership to strengthen it. At the same time, young men aspire to urban-oriented partners, while rural women seek spouses with salaried jobs and city addresses.

Underlying this is the economic reality of farming. Agriculture no longer provides a reliable or adequate income. Rising input costs, volatile prices, lack of assured markets and weak institutional support have made farming unviable for small and marginal farmers. Governments have spoken endlessly about doubling farmers’ incomes, but that piece of propaganda blew up in no time, making farmers even more cynical about any government support.

Land ownership patterns add another layer of complexity. In many villages, land remains jointly held by extended families. Fragmentation, disputes and economic interest make sale or consolidation difficult. Families migrate but retain ownership, leaving land uncultivated. Terraces collapse, invasive species spread, and fragile hill ecosystems degrade. Social migration becomes ecological decline.

The irony is that the urban economy absorbing this migration is far less stable than it appears. Most rural youth do not enter secure, well-paid employment in the cities. They enter informal jobs with long hours, poor working conditions and no social security. Housing is expensive, public services are stretched and social isolation is common. Yet the illusion persists.

The cost of empty villages is far greater than the loss of a population. When villages die, food security weakens, agro-biodiversity erodes and traditional knowledge disappears. India’s resilience has always rested on its rural systems: diverse crops, local food cultures and decentralised livelihoods. So if villages continue to empty out, India will lose the foundations of self-reliance in food systems, ecological balance and social stability.

Yet reversing this trend requires more than emotional appeals. Farming must be made economically viable, socially respected and institutionally supported. Rural areas need education, healthcare, connectivity and opportunities for local enterprise. Most important, agriculture must be repositioned as skilled, modern and dignified work.

Let’s recall the most far-sighted and inspiring call to action made by Lal Bahadur Shastri in 1965: “Self-sufficiency in food to be no less important than an impregnable defence system in the preservation of our freedom and independence.” This was how the “Jai Jawan, Jai Kisan” slogan was born.

https://www.asianage.com/opinion/columnists/suman-sahai-ghost-villages-a-growing-threat-in-uttarakhand-indias-hill-areas-1942449

Consumers Short Changed On Blended Petrol

Suman Sahai

Ever since India’s ethanol blending program (mixing ethanol with petrol) was started, there have been concerns about the impact of ethanol on the functioning of the automobile engines.

The original timeline for mixing ethanol with petroleum was 10% by 2022 and the blending target for 20% ethanol was 2030. Both blending targets were reached early, 6 months in the case of the 10% target and 5 years for the 20% target which was reached in 2025.

As the government was racing ahead to increase the amount of ethanol it was mixing with the petrol that the consumer was buying, it neglected to keep the consumer informed about the implications of ethanol blending in automobile fuels. Lots of expert commentaries began to appear on the potential downside of ethanol blending. Reports are coming in that the fuel efficiency of blended petrol was poor, that the mileage derived from blended petrol was lower than normal petrol because ethanol has less energy than gasoline.

This short changes the owners of all, four, three and two wheeler vehicles and has economic implications for every vehicle owner. This will be especially hard hitting for commercial vehicles like the three wheeler autos and transporters.

Apart from this, there were reports that the acceleration of vehicles using blended fuel, was lower and even more serious, ethanol blended fuel will damage older vehicles with engines that are not made for its use. Ethanol’s oxygen content and its higher moisture content can also cause rusting of metallic parts and disintegration of plastic and rubber fittings in the engine. It stands to reason that the higher the ethanol content in the petrol, the greater the damage to the motor. So 20% ethanol blending will in principle cause more damage to the engine than 10 % blended petrol.

The government continued to rebut these warnings, harping instead on the benefits to the environment because of lower emissions and less pollution. Its other justification was the saving of foreign exchange by having to import less petroleum. All this became untenable in the face of evidence of damage and finally the Petroleum Ministry had to concede that there were in fact problems with petrol that was mixed with ethanol.

In its statement of 5 August, 2025, while continuing to emphasize the benefits of ethanol blended fuel and reiterating that there weren’t really any harmful impacts on the engine, the government was compelled to admit that “ethanol has a lower energy density than petrol, leading to a slight reduction in mileage, about 1–2% for four-wheelers calibrated for E20 and designed for E10, and roughly 3–6% in other vehicles”.

So older vehicles will face a mileage reduction of upto 6% ! The Ministry adds that “this small efficiency loss can be reduced further with better engine tuning and ( putting in ) E20-compatible materials.”

Going further, the Ministry says “In some older vehicles, replacing certain rubber parts or gaskets may be recommended after about 20,000 to 30,000 km of use. This replacement is cost-effective and can be conveniently performed during routine vehicle servicing.”

Clearly, the government has been less than open on the downside of ethanol blending. It should have informed the consumers about what it was proposing to do and what the implications of such a change would be. Billboards at petrol stations could have laid out the pros and cons of ethanol blending so that the consumer was not in the dark about what she was putting into her vehicle, Gas station attendants should have been trained to answer questions on the benefits and drawbacks of ethanol mixed petrol, None of this was done.

The two main questions from the consumer’s standpoint:

If cheaper ethanol is being mixed with petrol, the price of the blended fuel should be lower than normal petrol for the consumer. But that is not the case. So in essence, the government is pocketing all the savings on the petrol import bill instead of passing some of it to the consumer. In addition, it is also making money off the consumer by charging her the full price of normal petrol instead of the reduced price of blended petrol.

 While the government rakes in the money in the above manner, it has conveniently passed on to the consumer, the costs of reduced fuel efficiency and reduced mileage etc. In addition, it has also passed on to the consumer the costs of changing engine parts to rectify the damage that ethanol blended fuel will cause. Suman Sahai is the founder of Gene Campaign. The views expressed here are the writer’s own.

Source: https://www.thecitizen.in/opinion/government-gets-the-money-consumers-pay-the-cost-1193734